Buriram road smash kills 12 travelling to funeral
Twelve mourners were killed when their packed pickup truck collided with a passenger bus as they travelled to the funeral of a relative in northeastern Thailand, police said Saturday.
Tuesday 3 January 2012, 11:34AM
Ten women and two men, many of whom were sitting in the open-top rear of the truck, were killed instantly in the smash in Buriram province. Four other people were injured.
Colonel Pongsak Suk-im, commander of the local Nangrong district police, told AFP that the early morning collision happened when the truck pulled onto a main road in front of a long-distance bus from Bangkok.
The accident came during the most dangerous week of the year on Thailand's roads.
Annual fatalities from vehicle crashes during the New Year period regularly run into the hundreds, due to a combination of the large number of people on the roads and drunk driving.
Almost 100 people have already died and more than a thousand have been injured in accidents in the past two days, according to the interior ministry.
– AFP
